Because my mother loved Christmas music, I have accumulated quite an eclectic mixture of Holiday albums over the years. She favored the more traditional “Christmas music” while I tried to mix in “Holiday music” or at least instrumental versions of the standards.
I started playing my holiday play list for her the day after Thanksgiving and ended on New Year’s Day. That’s a lot of hours so I kept expanding my collection so as not to have too many repeats. A few, like the Trans Siberia Orchestra albums were not to her taste, so this year my play list has changed once again as I have added some items (and deleted some others that I find just too “treacly”).
Here’s a link to one of the songs that she just didn’t appreciate as much as I do. Click the link, scroll down to the video of “Sugar and Booze” and enjoy!
My personal tradition each year is to listen to Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s Christmas albums. For the most part, their songs were not something quite to my mom’s taste, so I never played the whole albums for her. It just become my own little custom to take a few moments to listen to each album straight through sometime in December. I just now listened to the first one while making some flowers.
My favorite song on their “Christmas Eve and Other Stories” is “An Angel Returned”. I love the “Kyrie among nations” chorus. You should listen to the song on YouTube if you don’t know it.
An odd tradition for a very non-religious person, but, hey, we’re all full of contradictions!
An Angel Returned
An angel returned That night through the sky But time it was short He had to decide
And so as he flew Back over the land A gift for his Lord Was there in his hand
It was the glow of a light It was the heart of a song It was the tear of a child Where they never belonged It was the wish of a soul On an old neon light And the Lord smiled at him On that cold winter night
Hear the bells ring through the night Kyrie among nations Kyrie among nations Kyrie among nations Here as they ring through the night
Kyrie among nations Kyrie among nations Kyrie among nations Hear the bells ring through the night
Kyrie among nations Kyrie among nations Kyrie among nations Hear as they ring through the night
Listen to the bells as they ring Listen to the message they bring Listen to the sound As they sing as one voice in the night
Hoping that we’ll all understand Every dream is there in our hands And for every bell Let them ring all through the night
Kyrie among nations Kyrie among nations Kyrie among nations Hear the bells ring through the night
Kyrie among nations Kyrie among nations Kyrie among nations Here as they ring through the night
Listen to the bells as they ring Listen to the message they bring Listen to the sound as they sing As one voice in the night
Hoping that we’ll all understand Every dream is there in our hands And for every bell May they ring all through your life
Most poetry leaves me confused, but I get this one.
It says what I’ve been feeling:
“I want you to believe that the Universe is a vast, random, uncaring place, in which our species, our world, has absolutely no significance. And I want you to believe that the only response is to make our own beauty and meaning, and to share it while we can.”
Growing up, I was taught that it was important for me to use my talents and smarts to do something big to make the world a better place. I have realized several things over the years regarding this goal:
1. I’m smart, but not brilliant; I was never going to come up with paradigm-changing, world-shaking ideas,
2. Even if I had the talent, I don’t have the desire to put in the hours it would take to be world-class at something, and
3. Improving the world does not mean having to do something that will go down in the history books.
More and more, I think that the whole idea of just being kind to others, of actually practicing the Golden Rule, has more of a chance to better the world than most anything else. Which leads me to flower gifting.
I have been making paper flowers since 2017. I never made them with the goal of selling them, I just enjoyed the process. This means that over the years, I have given many flowers away and never more so than in the last few months.
Since August, my physical therapist’s office got several bouquets of tulips. One of the receptionists there took a bouquet of various wildflowers with her when she moved to Texas; the other receptionist got a bouquet of daisies and roses. My physical therapist got a pink rose for her birthday last month. My landscaper took several roses home to his wife. My home-health nurse admired my water lilies and now has one sitting on his desk at work.
If you are around me long enough, I will probably ask you what your favorite flower is and try to foist one off on you, for example:
A friend I gave poinsettias to in 2018, just told me this year that she still brings them out each Christmas
My housekeeper’s mother got blue and white anemones for her birthday
A rather reclusive neighbor got red, white, and blue gladiolas for 4th of July
A good friend got hydrangeas to match those in her yard
A neighbor who lost her mother got gardenias because those were her mother’s favorite flower
Another neighbor got some of my first self-designed flowers: Alstroemeria
When I look at all the flowers I have made and given away over the years (which you can see if you look under the Paper Flowers heading here on my blog), I like to think that I am, after all, doing my little bit to brighten up the world.
An example of the flowers I often have sitting about
(Many of the flowers I make are thanks to the designs and techniques found at https://liagriffith.com/craft/all-paper-flowers/. If you’re interested in making flowers or many other things, her site is hard to beat.)
After a few people this year told me how much they like their bidet, I went out and got one. Now I wonder why the hell these things aren’t standard in every household. They’re freaking awesome! And they save a tremendous amount of toilet paper, so better for the environment. Win, win!
(And, no, I don’t feel bad about the amount of water it uses even though I live in the desert because Henderson recycles 99+% of the water that goes into the sewer system.)
Italy has the highest bidet adoption rate among all countries, with approximately 97% of households having a bidet.
Japan has seen a steady increase in bidet adoption, with approximately 81% of households having bidets installed in their bathrooms.
Bidets are widely used in households in Spain, with approximately 85% of households having a bidet.
Bidet usage varies significantly across different countries, with the United States and China having relatively low adoption rates.
I wasn’t sure whether I’d use all the options on it but have to admit that I turned on the water-warming feature almost right away. And now that cool weather has finally arrived, I have turned on the seat-warming feature. A warm seat in the middle of the night is a surprisingly wonderful luxury.
Getting one is not a huge expense, either. Mine is the Brondell LE99 Bidet Toilet Seat which is around $300. I did have my handyman put a GFI outlet in by the toilet, but that’s not a necessity as long as there is power somewhere nearby.
In short, if you don’t have a bidet, get one! I can’t imagine you’ll regret it.
I was only in the hospital for 2-1/2 days with my stroke, mostly waiting for tests to be scheduled. I was totally ambulatory the whole time and did not require much in the way of attention. I talked to the nursing staff at change of shift, during blood draws, etc., but didn’t interact much with anyone other than that. Yet 2 people came up to me to thank me for being so nice.
The first was the man delivering meals. Now I don’t think I did much other than thank him for delivering the tray and taking it away. And even at that, I wasn’t there for several of the meals, so I only saw him a few times. And yet he made a point of thanking me for being “so nice” unlike many other people.
The nurse on the evening shift also thanked me for being so good to work with. Now in her case, I think my “niceness” was just in comparison to the woman next door who, admittedly, sounded like a handful. Still, being called “nice” twice in one day seemed odd.
Then the next day when the home health nurse arrived, I was told the same thing. Again, I have no idea just what behavior of mine they found so remarkable.
It seems a sad commentary on society when merely being polite counts as being nice!
Since my little stroke, I have had all sorts of thoughts about life and death and what kind of life I hope I am living and other such stuff. I have had lots of things I want to write about, so much so that I’ve been a bit overwhelmed trying to tie them all together.
The answer, of course, is to give up trying to make one cohesive essay and write down lots of little ones as thoughts come up. That’s what I am going to try to do.
So first: having a stroke has thrown me more than I think a heart attack would have. I’ve always sort of assumed I might be done in by a heart attack someday. In fact, I’ve always said that my preferred method of dying would be to have a big enough attack that I just didn’t wake up some morning.
(Which leads to thoughts of “Who would know if that happened?” “What about my dog?” “Would the cleaning people come in days later to a real mess?” Ah, the problems of living alone.)
But I had never considered a stroke. The idea of being alive but unable to do anything is absolutely frightening to me. I think I would be more than ready to do the hard work if recovery was possible, but what if it wasn’t? The idea of being shuffled off to some nether world that was in the twilight zone between living and dying is anathema to me. Which is why I have given very detailed instructions as to what I want to the person who has my health power of attorney.
Which is not to say I’m planning on anything happening anytime soon. In fact, today’s good news is that the follow-up CT scan I had on Monday shows that all is stable.
Meantime, I’m spending at least an hour a day reading aloud and/or singing. I’m a little closer to being able to hold a note!
Had someone who saw my tulips at the physical therapy office ask me to make her a bouquet of 13 flowers in some specific colors: 4 dark pink, 2 light pink, 1 gold, 2 dark orange, 1 light orange, 1 purple, and 2 yellow.
I ended up making 2 sets; both sets started with white crepe paper. I colored one with inks and the other with Pan Pastels. The inked ones on the left seem a little more delicate to me, but I like them both. She liked them too; she bought all 26 of them!
10 days post stroke and I am doing quite well. My speech is basically back to normal, just need to be careful not to talk too fast. I have discovered one other side effect, though: I can’t hold a note at all.
On the morning of the stroke one of the things that clued me in to the problem was that I tried to sing the “Do, Re, Me” song to my dog and could not hit the notes. I still can’t. I’ve gone from having what I call a “decent community choir” type voice to one that grates on my ears.
A big solution to improving my speech was reading aloud; I have been doing that for an hour or so a day. Going to see if singing along to some songs will improve my voice in the same way. Trisha Yearwood songs are almost entirely in my range (or at least they used to be!) so I’ll be singing along to those while I sit in front of the computer.
Tuples and Attributes 